Yes but monopoly prevention is just one part of it. We still need to address things like: environmental issues (if a company deals in waste, are they taking care of it optimally or just dumping it anywhere, if it is a fishing company, are they following regulations put into place to insure stability in oceanic ecosystems) and wage issues (are they paying the common man/woman fairly and enough for them to make a decent living, or are they exploiting their labour, etc.). I don't find any convincing evidence that corporations would address these needs if they were not regulated to do so.

The other part was the education system, crime/justice system was the other., but would you say that for the education system? If we didn't have public schools, I wouldn't have been able to go to school, much less college, nor would most people posting on this board. Would that be fair or right? Would you think that would be best for society?

In America, and for every nation, these concepts of equality, and equal rights, in order for them to be realized, people need to have the same opportunities, the same ability to go to school and to educate themselves and improve their lives. Some of us start out less fortunate than others, but I still believe that instead of just leaving it like that, we need government/state/international enforcement that these things become a part of everyone's life when it can be done. The reason why I'm bringing education up so much is because it is one of our most regulated things and something that is one of our/the world's greatest successess.

I feel the same way about the health care system. I don't see how 43 million Americans without healthcare is a sign that the current privatized form of healthcare works, or how "non-profit" health corporations (like Keiser Permanente for example) actually make money (billions in fact) but we are still poor from our healthcare needs. Healthcare is something everyone needs, and while I think a switch to public healthcare would and should be taken care of very delicately, it needs to happen.

So, why would deregulation work in other markets? It didn't work for the energy market here in California when deregulation occurred a few years back, why is it going to work for other markets and other corporations? Is deregulating the oil industry going to help us or hurt us? Is a "free market" oil industry what we want?

http://www.lp.org/issues/environment

I would suggest reading up on the Libertarian Party platform on this issue, as it accounts for the views of about 95% of libertarian viewpoints regarding the environment, regardless to whether they affiliate with the party that goes by the same name or not. The biggest polluter out there is the government, particularly when it comes to military related situations, and no one regulates them. Furthermore, do you think a bunch of bought and paid for congressmen and executive officials would even bother policing oil companies and the like (aside from lots of nonsensical laws that are never enforced consistently, if at all) who essentially buy their vacations?

Government is for sale, the corporate polluters are the buyers, end of story.

I am fully against this military epidemic we have. War, especially unfounded ones, is the biggest waste of all.

Anyway, yes I do think that eventually certain politicians and certain parties do begin policing oil companies, which is starting to be the case. It is a slow process I admit, but it IS occurring. We are making sure companies are moving more towards greener forms of energy, and that we invest in alternate sources that will supplant oil and coal dependency. But my main point is this: If there is corruption in the government you don't take out the government, you take out the corruption. Corporations have all the means and to give them more power/freedom we would be setting ourselves up for failure.

I can basically guarantee you that what you are describing will never happen, the corporate news media may fool you into thinking it is in the works, but hoping for it is not logical given the history laid out by the link I provided. Corporations ARE the government, to support the latter against the former is to basically support the former. Elections are largely fixed/manipulated, and just about everyone in Washington D.C. has a price. So I am focusing on the corruption, because that is what 95% of government embodies, it is precisely how these corporations got the power they have in the first place and it is what keeps them powerful. Asking them to police their owners is like asking a mafia hitman to protect his target from the mob boss who called in the hit.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and if government has sovereign immunity then we will observe nothing more than SOME corporations being destroyed while others consolidate more power or buy out the ruined ones, and the cycle of corruption continues. There will always be war for this reason, and the difference between founded and unfounded wars will likely be the distinction between more believable lies and less believable ones. The first step in dealing with corrupt policemen is to strip them of their policing powers, and that isn't going to happen so long as we entrust the fox with guarding the hen house.

Well, I'm not one to go in long discussions, so I just say that I disagree. I do think these things are happening, I don't think elections are being fixed/manipulated on the level that you probably believe they are, nor do I think the "corporate media" is so absolute and in complete collusion with one another in an attempt to deceive the American people. There is a difference between being critical/wary of government and being paranoid/skeptical of it.

Fair enough, but I would personally put myself more in being a skeptic of government rather than paranoid of it. The corporate media aren't so much in collusion with one another as they are with their owners, who largely are in collusion with each other. Individual reporters break stories all the time about stuff that is very true, but an editor's pen or an order from the manager makes the difference in how it's presented to the reader/viewer. It is less a question of outright lying and more of a matter of repackaging fragmented pieces of truth.

Anyway, not to get this too long since you've basically made your point, I'll simply provide you with this link to give some food for thought, because apparently it seems that according to certain smaller environmental advocates that many of the mainline/larger environmental groups rely heavily on corporate donations to function.

http://www.oilwatchdog.org/articles/?storyId=23046

@hells_unicorn

Your analysis of the relationship between corporate power, the media and the government is somewhat crude. It relies to heavily on moral judgements and neglects the most important feature of a proper anaysis of the phenomena you seek to explain. This is the institutional structures involved. Happily in the Western world our dominant institutions are well documented and governed pretty consistantly by law. So in a sense it's very easy to find out what's going on. Its not as murky or as malignant as the conspiracy theorist side of the left like to make out. By far the most shocking realisations come from an honest analysis of the implications of the institutional structures of corporations and the governments of the western world. Obviously such an analysis is very rarely done, and when it is it remains within specialised, non-influential fields of accademia (media-studies, sociology, etc.). A good book to start you down this line of thought, if you are interested, is Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky and Herman.

I've read Chomsky's material and he is a pathological liar and a CIA apologist, I'd sooner trust a snake.

Libertarianism, much like Communism, looks great on paper but generally fails to take human nature into consideration. The concept being that humans have the right to basically do as they please, as they will always do the right thing. But we all know better than that. We can't even get people to obey red lights. Also, many people feel that they ARE doing the right thing in their own minds, contrary to what the majority may think. Libertarians are fine until their neighbor plays his stereo too loudly or paints his house a color that they don't like. Then they want you to do as THEY want. Ron Paul, the beloved savior of the Libertarian party, has stated that if elected President, he would overturn Roe vs. Wade, a Supreme Court decision. This is NOT a Libertarian way of thinking.

I've never heard a libertarian say that people would always do the right thing if left to their own devices. Not once. That's not libertarianism at all.


In the former case, a libertarian would either not care, or he would argue that it was an infringement of his rights: "My right to wave my fist in the air ends where your nose begins." Besides, libertarians are not known for making the sort of frivolous complaints you're talking about. I've never heard of a libertarian trying to change the color of another person's house; in fact, I think that trying to do so would mean that you weren't a libertarian. I'm starting to doubt that you know what libertarianism is.


Hint: Ron Paul is a Republican, not a Libertarian. He's never, to my knowledge, had anything to do with the Libertarian Party, much less being it's "beloved savior."

Ron Paul ran for president on the Libertarian ticket in 1988 and his run for the Republican nomination this time around certainly generated more support for the Libertarians, which is probably what was being referenced.

Yes, that is indeed what I was referring to. Ron Paul is the candidate of choice for most who claim to be Libertarians. And my statements about the house color was a METAPHOR, if you know what that is. I do indeed know and understand what Libertarians stand for, and it is absolutely the most vague description of any present day philosophy. And yes indeed, Liberatarians believe and expect everyone to do the right thing. In their belief of individual property rights, they expect their next door neighbor to not offer their property to a waste management company to dispose of garbage or to open a strip club or concert hall. Read this first paragraph of a definition of Libertarian and you may get what I'm saying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian

Metaphor... What was that again? Oh yes! That's a freshman English SAT word that sophomoric fools use when they want to be condescending! In fact, you did not use the house painting example as a metaphor. A metaphor would require that each of the elements involved in the example SYMBOLIZE something else, not that they INSTANTIATE an idea, in this case, the hypocrisy that you think is inevitable among people who claim that they want limited government. You gave an example, not a metaphor.

Besides, the definition of libertarianism on Wikipedia doesn't prove what you think it proves. The only common theme to all the types of libertarianism is a belief in small government, which is what Wikipedia says. However, that doesn't mean that libertarians assume that their neighbor isn't going to do something they don't like. The example of Ron Paul, even if I was incorrect about his past party affiliation, doesn't prove that all libertarians are hypocrites, which is what you're saying by posting this criticism of libertarians in the most general context possible. You thus assert that it is intrinsic to libertarianism that its adherents oppose government except when it benefits them, which is categorically not true.

My point is that, even if you're right that Ron Paul's opposition to Roe v. Wade is a contradiction of his libertarian value of limited government, which some would argue it is not, that still doesn't mean that libertarianism itself and/or all libertarians embody the same hypocrisy for several reasons:

1. Ron Paul, regardless of his supposed popularity among libertarians, which, I take it, you base on your scientific research of internet forums, does not represent all libertarians. He's not even a member of the Libertarian Party, and I have no idea how you can justify the idea that he is such a messianic figure among libertarians. In other words, Ron Paul may be popular among some libertarians, but he by no means represents all libertarians, and so any criticism of him is not a criticism of all libertarians or of libertarianism. If you had scrolled down the Wikipedia page that you cited, you would have found that there are a plethora of different schools of libertarianism. Now I ask you: does it really look like libertarian socialists, left-libertarians, or anarchists would support Ron Paul?

2. In your critique of libertarians, you presuppose that they hypocritically hold both libertarian principles of small government and those principles' contradictions of government interference (whenever the latter is most beneficial to libertarians). In short, you presuppose that libertarians are acting as though they were not libertarians, which makes no fucking sense at all. A true libertarian could always retort that the people you're talking about are not true libertarians and don't actually believe what they claim to believe, which, coincidentally, is your hypothesis, and that they therefore cannot form the basis for a critique of libertarianism. That, I'm afraid, kind of undermines whatever case you have.

Hey. Thomash. I'm here to carry on a mature discussion. I'm not trying to be condescending at all. These are my opinions and I respect yours. You're taking this way too seriously and you may need to take a poop. BTW. I consider myself to be largely a Libertarian, due to the fact that I feel that I've done the right thing all my life and my history proves it. I also said that I'm a Reagan Republican, believing in many of the ideals that Ron Paul shares. I'm assuming that you consider yourself a Libertarian, but you're not even aware of the history of the party or philosophies that the majority adhere to. May I ask how old you are?

http://www.ronpaulforpresident2008.com/news/

metaphor




met·a·phor [ méttə fàwr ] (plural met·a·phors [ mèttə máwrfə sz ])


noun

Definition:

1. implicit comparison: the use to describe somebody or something of a word or phrase that is not meant literally but by means of a vivid comparison expresses something about him, her, or it, e.g. saying that somebody is a snake


2. figurative language: all language that involves figures of speech or symbolism and does not literally represent real things


3. symbol: one thing used or considered to represent another


[15th century. Via French or Latin< Greek metaphora< metapherein "to transfer" < pherein "to carry"]


met·a·phor·ic [ mèttə fáwrik ] adjective
met·a·phor·i·cal [ mèttə fáwrik'l ] adjective
met·a·phor·i·cal·ly adverb

Well, I'm on my way out to a Metal show, what every Metalhead here should be doing on a Friday night!! Thomash and everyone else. Have very Metal evening!!

Minimize the strawmen, sir. As Thomash pointed out, you supplant Ron Paul's ideals, whether actual or merely perceived by you, into all the minds of libertarians. As he also pointed out, libertarians, like atheists or anarchists, share one core ideology - minimal government. You cannot attach additional baggage without using the strawmen you so clearly love.

Greetings, Noobbot. I introduce no "strawmen"...... only facts and truths. Beyond the desire for less government interference, Libertarians expect ALL citizens to conform to standards accepted by the majority as a whole, whether they will admit it or not. Honestly, how many humans do you know that you can count on to do the right thing that would lead to less government intrusion or mandates? From speeding and running red lights to paying child support to not stealing or murdering? My point is that man is unable to coexist without stringent rules and regulations and does indeed force his ideals and beliefs on others. How can you deny this?

I'd also like to ask, Noobbot, how you can say that Atheists are for minimal government when in fact Communist nations like China, North Korea and the former USSR condemn(ed) and prohibit(ed) all forms of religion but maintain(ed) total government control regarding every aspect of each citizen's lives?

How can you connect all Atheists to those movements?

I don't. Just as I can't connect all Libertarians to Ron Paul's philosophies or all Republicans to Reagan's, nor all Democrats to FDR's. It's Noobbot who made the blanket statement that Athiests are for minimal government, as Libertarians are. But there are also many Atheists involved in our political system with some holding public office who are all about government involvement in everyone's daily lives. My point that I was attempting to make from my very first post on this thread is that I do not believe that the general Libertarian philosophies of individual freedoms and property rights accompanied by very limited government intrusions could ever reach fruition simply because individuals all have their own mindsets and more often than not will not do what's best for their neighbors or their communities that they share. In many instances, not even for their own families, i.e, child abuse and neglect, spousal abuse, failure to financially support their offspring, etc. Should we allow these things to happen in the name of personal liberty? As I also mentioned previously, should your neighbor next door be allowed to open a nightclub or an auto body shop because it's his property?

No, he said Atheists have one core ideal. He just worded his sentence poorly and it can be read as saying Atheists all believe in minimal government.

Of course, if he meant the latter, that would make him silly, although your example was still bad.

That's your opinion, which is fine with me. But I don't believe Athiesm even addresses government. It's merely the non belief in a diety or god. As was stated earlier, one can't attach strawmen to make their points.

Yes, that's what I meant he was indicating: that the common value of Atheists is a rejection of God/theology.

"As he also pointed out, libertarians, like atheists or anarchists, share one core ideology - minimal government."

Fair enough, but his above quote appeared to reference the fact that these three entities all share the same belief in minimal government.

I'm only going to point out for the sake of argument with regards to FClef that Ron Paul is absolutely not representative of the entire spectrum of libertarian ideology. Most of his beliefs are held in common with Paleoconservative ideology, particularly his views regarding states rights, abortion, religion, tax policy and property rights. Some libertarians, by contrast, take Noam Chomsky's view of a sort of anarchistic model in line with certain Marxist and Socialist principles, particularly Syndicalism, which is considered within the libertarian spectrum although I patently reject it and consider myself within the libertarian ideology.

The problem with the term libertarian is that it only covers a basic belief in individual liberty, it doesn't specifically relate to a particular method of achieving/maximizing this ideal, nor does it lay out a coherent ideology aside from a general defense of the concept of civil liberties superimposed on the individual, something which collectivism tends to reject in favor of group based rights.

Ron Paul is closest to me ideologically, but he is also extremely close to old guard conservatives like Barry Goldwater and Pat Buchanan, who I personally have a lot in common with but many other libertarians do not. His wide base of support was mostly based upon his opposition to the war and the patriot act, which only Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel were also willing to fully oppose rather than pay lip service to like Barack Obama and John Edwards. A lot of his support was also based on opposition to cartel style fractional reserve banking, which is directly responsible for the crazy and volatile business cycles that America has been suffering from for most of the past 100 years. Many of his supporters didn't agree heavily with him on social issues.

FClef, I think that others have sufficiently explained the logical fallacy in your first two posts. Leaving aside my intense posting style (unfortunately my sarcastic sense of humor and desire for rigorously logical argument comes across as aggressive in my posts sometimes), that leaves the rather trivial debate regarding example v. metaphor. The problem is, none of the objects in your "metaphors" seem to symbolize anything else. I think the origin of your confusion is that you apparently don't believe that libertarians are likely to do the specific things that you mentioned, but only other similar things.

However, that does not in and of itself make your speech figurative since, as I would argue, they are then hyperbolic examples: they establish the pattern of behavior that you identify with libertarians by exaggerating it, which is not a case of figurative language because all of the objects involved are intended to be taken literally, whereas a metaphor would relate completely unrelated ideas for the sake of attributing a characteristic of one of them to the other. That is to say, the painted house does not metaphorically represent the sort of individual freedoms to which you refer because it is an example of said freedoms, even if it is an extreme example.

Note: My age is irrelevant to the validity of the arguments presented here, but if you really want to know about me, just check my profile. (That's what it's there for, after all.) I don't want to get into a pissing contest which is what tends to happen when posters start talking about their personal histories in any argumentative context.

I'll take your posting style into consideration in the future, Thomash. And yes, your age is important to me. You appear to be very intelligent and educated, which is a major plus, but at the same time, if you're a young college student, you may be subjected to the influences of teachers that help to mold your thinking without you experiencing life long enough to judge if these teachings are correct to you. I think Churchill said that if you're not a Liberal by the time you're twenty, you have no heart. If you're not a Conservative by the time you're forty, you have no brain.....something like that. I take it a step further and say that if you claim to be either by the time you're Fifty, you've gained no wisdom. BTW. I'm over Fifty. Probably the oldest Metalhead here. Sorry I didn't look at your profile. I only started posting here yesterday and haven't had time to navigate around. And you have nothing to worry about with me being a douchebag in my comments.

Ron Paul is more of a Constitutionalist than a libertarian in some ways when it comes to his views on government, hence his position on Roe vs. Wade. You should know that he opposes federally-approved abortion laws but supports states to legalize them; this makes sense from a Constitutional standpoint since the Constitution says absolutely nothing about abortion whatsoever, and thus Roe vs. Wade was arguably the most extreme instance of extra-Constitutional court ruling ever. It should be abolished, if you want the Constitution intact. States, on the other hand, have every right to legalize it or illegalize it as they please, hence Paul's support of it.


I imagine Paul would support a federal amendment to the Constitution for abortion from a constitutional standpoint, but disagree with it from a religious standpoint.

I believe he would also. But he has said many times that he would overturn R vs. W. Perhaps he means through persuading Congress, the Supreme Court, or by majority vote of the American people. But his tone of an absolute end result to his liking, meaning the overturning of that law.....bothers me about his way of thinking. Which brings me back to my original posts. People aren't as accepting as they want you to believe, overall. Thus the inability to create a true Libertarian society.

The law was based upon supplanting the constitutional process that Ron Paul supports, so his language tends to be just as strong on it as it is with stuff like the federal reserve bank that are also contrary to Constitutional law and were enacted under extremely dubious circumstances. He'd probably like to eliminate most of the key provisions of abortion law, for both theological and ethical reasons tied to his profession as an obstetrician. Personally I'd like to see the law re-voted by either legislation or constitutional amendment and then re-authorize only a couple of provisions within the law itself.

Personally, I disagree to an extent with Paul's views on several parts of the Constitution, particularly the power of the federal government to maintain a regular army and the existence of clandestine intelligence agencies. Granted, his views on those two issues are closer to my liking than the fascist line that was towed by the mainstream candidates in both parties during the primaries.

Exactly. What I intended was this: libertarians, like atheists or anarchists, share one core ideology - in this case (libertarians), minimal government. It was hurried, and I apologize for the apparent confusion. In the plainest terms possible, atheists only commonly believe in no deities, anarchists believe that no coercive hierarchies should exist, and libertarians only believe that government should be minimal.



Libertarianism (or anarchism, in my case) is not about relying upon all people to do the right thing; if this was possible, there would be no need to rid ourselves of the state, or even to minimize it. However, I am of the firm belief that I can run my life better than extremely wealthy micro-managing authoritarian tyrants in a massive high chair. If no one can apparently adequately run their lives, how am I expected to believe that others - who also can't run their lives, according to this all-encompassing logic - are possible of doing so for all? That they should be the supreme rulers, the ones in possession of a total monopoly, amen? That's far less rational than allowing people to manage themselves.



Read the above.



Once again, read the above. I don't see how you possibly extrapolated your interpretation, even despite my poor wording.

And you did associate more than one collective commonality in libertarians. The government and the law do not signifiantly prevent crime; I would go so far as to say that the errors of the state do far more to increase crime than the potential penalties within the law serve as a deterrent. Some people will always choose to do 'bad' things, but punishing all (except, of course, those with power) is hardly just. Besides, if all men (and by men I mean humans) have the rights to their lives, property, freedom without coercion, and self-ownership, how can these be denied without their even incurring upon others rights? It is from those liberties that all others are drawn, and each is inseparable from the rest. To destroy one aspect of liberty is to destroy them all; one cannot be 'economically enslaved' while being otherwise free, and one cannot be socially limited while being financially free. The only 'liberties' separable from those are 'political liberties', which obviously exist only under a state. Of course, one can be rather free without being allowed to vote in opinion polls called elections, while suffrage hardly makes a man free if he has no other rights.



I'm still scratching my head.

One cannot assume that all atheists are scientific, that all anarchists are chaotic punks, or that libertarians all pleasure themselves to the tune of Ron Paul.



I don't see how youth or a lack thereof at all factors in with philosophy. One can have a convicted anarchist seeing the twilight of his years (Noam Chomsky, for instance), or a staunch statist who's only just developed what he might fancy sentience (which is questionable). Likewise, one can be well-educated and cultured in their youth, while one can also be blindingly ignorant when elderly. There is a very slight general trend of one gaining knowledge as one ages, as I have and hope all of you have as well, but this doesn't mean my judgment is necessarily poor because I am comparitively young to many who are theists and statists.

I'm very much a libertarian, and the rest of my political views are all over the place and hard to put into a left vs. right continuum.

Age, maturity and experience play a major role in our philosophies and how we view the world. And they tend to change as we get older. Thomash said he never heard of a Libertarian complaining about the color that someone wants to paint their house. How many Libertarians has he gotten to know in his 21 years on earth? As far as property rights, has he ever bought any or does he own his own home? My philosophies on life were quite different when I was 25 compared to what they are now at 52. But back to the idea of "minimal government", which I'm all for. How should minimal government be defined. Government is involved in every single aspect of our lives, individually and collectively, and I only see it growing as the nation and the world look to it to solve our problems, even as we see financial bailouts and record unemployment. Many Libertarians may say that government intrusion stops at our front yard, but what about gun laws? In Florida,we can keep guns in our homes, but if a minor obtains possession and injures himself or another, we'll be prosecuted by the government for negligence. And to carry it, we're required to obtain a concealed weapons permit, but even after that's done, there are still places that we can't carry that firearm,like schools or where they serve alcohol. We can also carry one in our vehicle without a permit but we can't keep it on our front seat ready to fire. It must be a two step move to access it. Just one rule after the other. And as far as property rights, my next door neighbor had a saturated drain field in his front yard due to his septic tank overflowing. It stunk to high heaven and he went months without repairing it. Luckily for me, it was on the opposite end of his house, away from mine, but his other neighbor smelled the stench constantly. They had to end up calling the county to force him to repair it. My point is that government had to get involved for my neighbor to "do the right thing". , How can we as a society define "minimal government" when everyone has a different idea about it?

I label myself Austro-Libertarian, for my adherence to the Austrian School of Economics, partly because I'm far more interested in the economic aspect of libertarianism than I am in the moral. Although I definitely agree with the Rothbardian system of morality and ethics, I just didn't seem to have much success explaining libertarianism in terms of moral philosophy because it was too easy to stray off into "moral subjectivism."

As for Ron Paul, I agree with many of his ideas and laud his ability to bring libertarian ideas to many people, but I simply detest the political system too much to ever vote for him, or anyone else for that matter.

My views have no doubt changed with time and maturity, but doesn't maturity differ on an individual level, physiologically and mentally? Assigning an aribitrary age to maturity - say, eighteen or twenty-one years - doesn't mean that everyone that age is truly mature, while some may have matured well before that.

he definitely filled himself with shit when he called Ron Paul a ultra-nationalist for wanting to pull the USA out of NATO, the UN, the WTO, etc. Chomsky is a rotten leftist and he's intellectually irrelevant.

I also included experience in my remark. As we age, and hopefully mature, life's experiences through our own eyes help us to determine if what we were taught in our youth is true or applicable in the "real world". Example: Being in my fifties and coming from the Philadelphia area, it was instilled upon me by the influential adults in my life that black people were lazy and uneducated. As a child, I believed everything I was taught to be fact, as we all do at that age. As I aged and got out on my own, meeting many people and making friends and entering the work force, I saw the prejudice that existed that I couldn't see as a young kid. Being white, I was privy to firsthand talk and actions of other whites around me who felt that they didn't need to hide their prejudice, as I was also white. I saw how white business owners and companies refused to hire blacks many times in my life, usually telling them that there were no openings, even when there were. Also, as I aged and read more about our true American history, I learned that blacks also were not allowed to attend schools with whites and they weren't supplied with the learning tools or education that white children recieved. So through time and my experiences, I realized that what I was taught was false. Blacks were just not given an "equal opportunity" to participate in our society, hence the creation of more government intervention in the form of Johnson's Great Society and government mandates to include minorities in the true American culture. I use this example purposely to ask you if this form of government intrusion in our lives is and was acceptable to people who hold Libertarian ideals.

Tell that to his army of mindless followers. These people go to protest the WTO, the actions of NATO and the World Bank, and then bow to their master whenever he calls anyone who actually wants to do something about them a fascist. No person can follow the entirety of his views consistently without burying oneself in a sea of self-contradiction.

American liberals think the government basically ought to provide for everyone, tax the rich and spend the money on benefits for the poor, etc. so I don't see the comparison.

However, let me elaborate. I think certain levels of "regulation" are in order. Agencies such as the FDA, etc. don't really wield a ton of power yet are, or should be, effective in acting in the best interest and safety of the country as a whole, which I believe should be the role of the federal government. Essentially the same thing as national security but a different sense of security. This would also be the case in economics so we don't see things like the recent economic crisis happen again. There needs to be rules and regulations to prevent things like this from happening. Since this happens on the national and international level, it wouldn't make sense to leave that up to the states.

I believe other powers should be left up to the states and that would vary from state to state depending on constituents, but on the federal level, I believe in extremely limited government involvement except in the case of safety and security. Of course, that needs to be kept in check.